sudanglo:Suppose we are two terrorists plotting when to send the radio signal to set off the bomb.

Wouldn't there be a difference in the time the bomb goes off between:

Atendu ĝis la Prezidento manĝos la supon,
Atendu ĝis la Prezidento manĝis la supon.

In which case would the doomed Prezidento get a chance to finish his soup?

Of course, complex forms allow the time of detonation to be clear.

For me, manĝi doesn't always carry the implication of finishing what one started eating. If I wanted to make it explicit that I finished whatever it is I was eating, I'd use finmanĝi. I don't know how many others have a similar perception.

Also, 'Atendu ĝis li estos finmanĝinta la supon.' is the most clear phrasing for me, as far as tense and whatnot is concerned. 'Manĝis' just doesn't do the trick for me, since the president's finishing the soup is an event that lies in the future as of the moment of utterance.

UUano:"Attendez jusqu'à ce que le Président aura mangé la soupe." [Wait until the President will have eaten the soup].

Actually, 'jusqu'à ce que' necessitates the use of the subjunctive for the verb that follows. So it'd be 'Attendez jusqu'à ce que le Président ait mangé la soupe.'

sudanglo:The problem is those who argue for a blanket avoidance of the complex forms of the verb, as though they were always bad style.

...

I was trying to explore the issue taking the side of the simple form camp.

I think that those who can't abide the complex forms are forced to go against the simple future here or risk the bomb not going off at the right time.

Gotcha. I guess what I was getting at is that, so far, I am not off the simple-form camp because I just can't get enough nuance there.

darkweasel: ... just that in German gegessen hat is a simple past tense form (it is not equivalent to the English-language present perfect tense, nor to estos manĝinta).

Wouldn't the simple past be, "Warte, bis der Präsident die Suppe aß"? [Which, by the way, makes as much sense to me as "Atendu ĝis la Prezidanto manĝis la supon."] The example I gave is equivalent to the English perfect tense (at least how I was taught).

Rohan:Actually, 'jusqu'à ce que' necessitates the use of the subjunctive for the verb that follows. So it'd be 'Attendez jusqu'à ce que le Président ait mangé la soupe.'

Touché! You are absolutely correct - the subjonctif is required here (how embarrasing! ). My mistake! The point still stands though, that sometimes a slightly more complex tense is needed for the appropriate nuance, IMHO.

Thanks everyone!

p.s. is it prezidanto or prezidento? What is the difference?

Rohan:Also, 'Atendu ĝis li estos finmanĝinta la supon.' is the most clear phrasing for me, as far as tense and whatnot is concerned.

Works for me!

UUano:
Wouldn't the simple past be, "Warte, bis der Präsident die Suppe aß"? [Which, by the way, makes as much sense to me as "Atendu ĝis la Prezidanto manĝis la supon."] The example I gave is equivalent to the English perfect tense (at least how I was taught).

Yes and no.

It is true that if you look at the sentence structure, you may come to the conclusion that hat gegessen = "has eaten" and aß = "ate". However, the uses of these tenses are different in English and German.

As I was taught, in English you would not say "yesterday I have eaten some soup". You would say "yesterday I ate some soup". But in German, gestern habe ich Suppe gegessen is a completely normal sentence.

In the southern dialects of German (which I'm a speaker of), the simple past barely exists at all. We nearly always use the perfect tense to express everything that happened in the past. The German perfect tense has much more possible uses than the English perfect tense.

UUano:p.s. is it prezidanto or prezidento? What is the difference?

Prezidanto is "someone who presides", usually over a meeting, like a chairperson. Prezidento usually refers to an office-holder, like a head of state, or perhaps an organisation. However you will find prezidanto among the definitions of prezidento; that does after all describe the person's function.

'Fin' as prefiks seems to be me not to have caught on in Esperanto. I guess that a corpus search would show estas/is/os -inta to be more common.

Anyway, it doesn't quite have the same perfective force.

Didn't we have an example somewhere in another thread 'Fintrinkante sian kafon, Maigret levis sin de la matenmanĝa tablo.

But for those who absolutely don't like complex forms we could perhaps allow:
Atendu ĝis la Prezidento finmanĝos la supon. But I don't like it.

My overall sentiment is that 'manĝis' in this sentence is a moot point.

However, as Rohan says 'manĝos' does imply that the Presidenta doesn't get a chance to finish his soup.

As I have argued before, the complex forms are there to be used as required.

Anyway, are we going to tackle 3rdblades passage now?

Danke schön, darkweasel; many thanks, Miland.

And yes, sudanglo, I will try my hand at that passage shortly...

UUano: The point still stands though, that sometimes a slightly more complex tense is needed for the appropriate nuance, IMHO.

Thanks everyone!

Oh yes absolutely, you're quite right. The futur antérieur definitely shows up when talking of such situations, as you said.

Here's another example: Attaque-le dès qu'il aura fini la soupe. (More or less literally: Attack him as soon as he will have finished the soupe.)

Thanks, Rohan!

Now, here is my attempt to translate 3rdblade's passage:

3rdblade:Just where he must have brushed through into clear space, Rhisiart lay on his back, his right hip hollowing the grass under him, shoulders flattened to the ground and arms spread wide. His legs were drawn up under him with bent knees, the left leg crossed over the right. His short, defiant beard pointed at the sky. So, and at the very same slanting angle, did the feathered flight of the arrow that jutted out from under the cage of his ribs.

Rhisiart kuŝis sur sia dorso ĝuste tie, kie li devis traurĝiĝi en apertan spacon; lia dekstra kokso enkaviginta la herbon malsupre de li, la ŝultroj ebenaj kontraŭ la tero kaj la brakoj disvastiĝitaj. Liaj gamboj estis tiritaj sub li kun kurbiĝitaj genuoj, la maldekstra gambo krucita super la dekstran. Lia mallonga defia barbo almontris al la ĉielo. Ankaŭ almontris tien, kaj je la sama oblikva angulo mem, la plumita alerono de la sago kiu projekciis de malsupre de lia torako.